


I Almost Do

by sinandmisery



Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: F/F, because i don’t have time to actually write anything substantial anymore, but these two won’t leave me alone, just a tiny little ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21778123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinandmisery/pseuds/sinandmisery
Summary: About that "Never actually called though, did you?" line...
Relationships: Donna Clark/Cameron Howe
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	I Almost Do

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally watched this show and I'm obsessed. I have absolutely ZERO time to be writing things, but these bits and pieces keep popping in my head and won't leave me alone until I write them down.

"I did call, you know."

"Donna?" Cameron asks, voice coming through the phone slightly staticy and clearly confused.

Donna switches her cordless phone to her other ear, tilting her head to cradle it against her shoulder, freeing up her hands to open up her patio door and step outside. "Yeah, it's me, Cam."

"What are you talking about?" 

"I was just thinking about, uh, COMDEX," Donna says as she takes a seat on the edge of the pool and slips her feet in the water, just like she had with Cameron a few weeks prior. "When you came to my room that morning and I told you I picked up the phone so many times, you said I never called. I didn't say it then, but I did call."

"What?" Cameron repeats, voice slightly higher pitched than it was a moment ago.

"Yeah, I... twice, actually. It took me almost two months after you left before I finally got up the nerve to call, but I got your answering machine. I tried again like a week later and I got you. I heard your voice and panicked, so I hung up," Donna explains slowly, taking measured breaths as she speaks to avoid the tears she can feel pricking at the back of her eyes.

"Donna..." Cam says, and something in her tone cracks Donna wide open, the tears she'd been holding back finally falling.

"I know, okay? It was stupid of me not to call. Not to really call, and talk to you." 

"It's been almost a decade since then," Cameron says, as if Donna could have forgotten just how much they missed in each other's lives. "Where is this coming from?"

"I don't know," Donna cries. "It's been on my mind the last few weeks. With Phoenix getting started, I just don't want to make the same mistakes from before. And I never really apologized for my part in everything that happened."

"Donna, I promise you that's behind us. I swear. I told you before I've accepted responsibility for my part in what happened to Mutiny. We're okay. I wouldn't have asked you to work together again if we weren't."

"I just need you to know how sorry I am for what I did to you. What I did to us. Letting you walk away - making you walk away - was the worst mistake I've ever made. We missed so much in those years, there was so much I wanted to share with you, so much I wanted you to be able to share with me. There wasn't a day I didn't think of you. Even when I was angry about it. Or sad. Or just... miserable. Mostly miserable," Donna says with a small laugh.

Cameron laughs mirthlessly, and after a long stretch of silence says, "Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me whatever it is that you called to tell me all those years ago."

"God," Donna says, taking a deep breath as she tries to center herself. She stares at the water, at her feet distorted through the ripples from the gentle breeze. "I don't even think I knew what I was going to say. There was so much to say, so much we should have said before it even got to that point, and we didn’t. I was never really good at explaining myself..."

"It's not like I made it any easier," Cameron interjects, causing Donna to chuckle, and then sigh.

"It wasn’t just you, Cam. If I would have actually gone through with the call, I would have started with telling you how sorry I was, for everything. Not just the... end of things. But all the little things that got us there. For not talking to you - truly talking to you - more. For not listening to you more. For getting frustrated and doubling down in anger instead of trying to meet in the middle. We were partners, but so often we acted like two people who happened to work together instead, if that makes sense."

"Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know I- I was guilty of that, too."

"There's also something that current me would have wanted past me to say, even if past me never would have had the courage to."

"Hmmm?"

"I miss you," Donna says with a deep sigh, a wave of longing washing over her and reminding her of just how intensely she missed Cameron all those years. "I miss you so much and nothing is the same without you. Come home. Let's try again."

The silence that follows after Donna stops speaking stretches long enough to allow anxiety to take over, to wonder if she said too much, too soon. She opens her mouth to tell Cameron to forget it - much like Cameron had when she first suggested they work together again - when Cameron finally speaks.

"Thank you," she says quietly. "I know I said I'm over it - and I _am_ , but it was good to hear it. I needed to hear that." The _for so many years_ goes unsaid, but Donna hears it anyway.

"It may have taken too long, but I meant every word. And I'm glad we're trying again, no matter how long it's taken."

"Me too," Cameron sighs. "Me too."


End file.
